Phenotypic diversity was assessed in thirty diverse short duration chickpea cultivars and breeding lines by Mahalanobis's D2-statisticsin two contrasting environments (E1 and E2) using grain yield and other economically important agronomic characters. Based on D2 values 30 genotypes were grouped into eight clusters in E1 and five in case of E2. Inter cluster D2 values indicated that ICC4958 (a drought tolerant large seeded genotype) and Kari kadale (a short duration black seeded landrace with more number of branches)in E1 whereas ICCV 5 (a medium duration wilt resistant Kabuli cultivar with more branches) and BGD 9617 (a super-early desi genotype) in case of E2 were highly divergent. Kari kadale, a landrace from Karnataka showed maximum diversity with the high yielding released cultivars and breeding lines in E1. Crossing between diverse short duration genotypes involving the landrace Kari kadale as one of the parents in respect of E1 and that between diverse short duration and medium duration genotypes in E2 is expected to be highly successful in recombining earliness and high yield required for enhancing chickpea production and productivity in terminal drought and heat stress environments.